2021 Re: planting.

 

Triomphe and Bacchus trunks on the bonfire

 

Chronology

2018. Triomphe D'Alsace vines grubbed up. Replanted with Cabernet Noir.

2019. Bacchus grubbed up. replanted with 500 Soreli vines.

2020. 450 Soreli vines died in hot spring weather when Covid prevented access to vineyard.

2021. Vineyard re-planted with 200 Soreli and 200 Fleurtai vines. Also 100 Cabernet Noir replacement

          vines planted.    

 

Paolo with auger-digger

 

With the plantings of 2019 devastated by the hot spring weather during the first lockdown, we had to go to great lengths to obtain replacement plants from VCR France. Nobody knew what bureaucratic hoops would have to be gone through to negotiate Brexit. In the end, VCR France found a way.

For the planting this year we went to a company called Vinecare and we are glad we did. Paul Woodrow-Hill, Company Director of Vinecare advised us not to plant before the end of April or beginning of May to avoid frosts. We hade never planted later than the end of March but we took his advice and we were glad we did because Spring 2021 was every bit as cold asnd frosty as 2020 was hot and dry.

We were also buying 75 Cabernet Noir (aka Cabaret Noir to protect Cabernet growers apparently) from Will Mower at Vine-Works Ltd - another concern clever enough to have managed to import plant material, this time from Germany. Our vines arrived somewhat early but 100 in number. We kept them in the fridge and that didn't seem to do them any harm and they are now sprouting as successfully as the VCR vines.

As a precaution, we decided together with our new advisor and helper Paolo Addis, an Italian/Englishman establishing a new vineyard nearby to dig some holes just to be ready in case vines arrived unexpectedly. Paolo dug around 150 and as will be seen, this was invaluable when our team of Romanians from Vinecare found themselves with one auger down (see below).

Coates and Seely plaque (note 'Methode Britannique}

Post-Brexit nobody knew how this could be accomplished but in the end, our allocation - 2 boxes with 250 vines each - came in on a much larger order by the well-known English Sparkling Wine producer Coates and Seely of Whitchurch, Hampshire.

 

Georgie (Georgina) Balmain with our vines, courtesy of Coates and Seely

 

Georgie (Georgina) Balmain, Operations Manager at Coates and Seely was extremely kind and helpful. The vines had been kept in cold store until we collected them the day before planting. 

 

Coates and Seely Brut

Coates and Seely Rose

Of course we took the opportunity to buy Coates and Seely Brut and Rose from the cellar door.

 

trimming the roots to 7cm was recommended

Paolo recommended us to trim the vines' roots to 7cm. This seemed counter-intuitive but we followed this prescription and almost all the vines have 'taken,' no doubt because of this.

 

Sue Osgood shows the way

 

 

 

 

Sue and the team getting started

 

The first hole

Sue Osgood was the team leader from Vinecare. She is a very well-known and respected viticulturalist with over 30 years’ experience working with vineyards in the UK, including Denbies and Bolney Wine Estates. She has an almost unrivalled source of knowledge and know-how when it comes to growing vines.  

 

this auger was a non-runner

This one did the work of two.

The day was misrable. Cold and rainy. This didn't seem to phase our Romanians who ploughed on remorselessly almost without a break. In 6 hours, they had planted 500 vines.

So what did we plant? 

Soreli ('Sun' in Friulian dialect) is a hybrid resistant to Powdery and Downy mildew and other vine illnesses. It is descended from Friulano (formerly known as Tocai Friulano). This is the vine we had personally selected at the Vivai Cooperatvo Rauscedo in 2018 when Export Manager Dr. Stefano Battistella gave us a tasting of micro-vinifications of some of VCR's new varieties.

We may be the first in the UK to have planted Soreli but there is a vineyard in Sweden where it and also its sister variety Fleurtai are grown.

Fleurtai. Like Soreli, this is an interspecific new breeding between Friulano (which is the same as Sauvignonasse by the way) and Kozma 20-3 (resistance partner). Both contain genes of Vitis Amurensis, Vitis Berlandii, Vitis Rupestris and Vitis Vinifera. Soreli and Fleurtai are both early maturing and frst resistant down to minus 23° Celsius and most importantly, as with Soreli, Fleurtai is resistant to both types of mildew. Fleurtai is grown in small amounts in Switzerland (Ticino).

The people at Langmyre Vineyard in Sweden characterise Fleurtai as having

Strong notes of pear and almonds, followed by hints of tropical fruit. Wines are clean with minerality 

and Soreli

...strong white flower scent combined with a petrol smell that reminds of German Rieslings.

Cabaret Noir (formerly known as Cabernet Noir) is an interspecific new breeding by Valentin Blattner in Soyhières (Jura) Switzerland. It is the progeny of Cabernet Sauvignon and unknown resistance partners. Blattner is a private grape breeder and so never reveals details of his resistance partners. Synonyms are Cabernet Noir and VB 91-26-04. It has genes from Vitis amurensis and Vitis Vinifera. It is early ripening (about the same time as Rondo), frost-hardy and resistant to both Powdery and Downy mildew and Botrytis. Its wines are described as having soft tannins and a wide range of aromas of dark cherries, juniper berries, violets, cloves and pepper. The variety is cultivated by one producer in small quantities in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen, Belgium, The Netherlands and France where the Domaine de la Colombette's Cabaret Noir is used as the house wine of St. John restaurant in London. 

We may have been the first to plant Cabaret Noir in the UK in 2018 but there must ahve been plantings this year if our 100 new vines were already in the country when we bought them. 

 NB. Why did we pull up our Triomphe and Bacchus? We ahve yet to taste a palatable wine made anywhere in the world from Triomphe and Bacchus is very susceptable to Mildew, requirng about 1 treatments with various chemicals a season. Bacchus has become the signature grape of English (and Welsh?) wine but no one will tell you about the chemicals required to produce it. We prefer to go the way of no-spray.